In reporting the results of this interchange of views to the Senate, January 22, 1917, President Wilson delivered the first of that series of addresses on the essentials of a just and lasting peace which made him the recognized spokesman of the liberal element in all countries and gained for him a moral leadership that was without parallel in the history of the world. "In every discussion of the peace that must end this war," he declared, "it is taken for granted that that peace must be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again. Every lover of mankind, every sane and thoughtful man must take that for granted." In fact, there was no dissent from this statement. Most of our leading men, including Taft, Roosevelt, and Lodge, were committed to the idea of a league of nations for the maintenance of law and international peace. The League to Enforce Peace, which had branches in all the Allied countries, had done a great work in popularizing this idea. The President came before the Senate, he said, "as the council associated with me in the final determination of our international obligations," to formulate the conditions upon which he would feel justified in asking the American people to give "formal and solemn adherence to a League for Peace." He disclaimed any right to a voice in determining what the terms of peace should be, but he did claim a right to "have a voice in determining whether they shall be made lasting or not by the guarantees of a universal covenant." First of all, the peace must be a "peace without victory," for "only a peace between equals can last." And, he added, "there is a deeper thing involved than even equality of right among organized nations. No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property." He cited Poland as an example, declaring that statesmen everywhere were agreed that she should be "united, independent, and autonomous." He declared that every great people "should be assured a direct outlet to the sea," and that "no nation should be shut away from free access to the open paths of the world's commerce." He added: "The freedom of the seas is the _sine qua non_ of peace, equality, and cooeperation." This problem, he said, was closely connected with the limitation of naval armaments. "The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind."